Trips for small vessels in Cebu suspended over gale warning

CEBU CITY – Over 1,000 passengers were stranded in Cebu after Coast Guard authorities suspended the trips for small vessels because of the gale warning issued by the weather bureau.

The Philippine Atmospheric Geophysical and Astronomical Services Administration (Pagasa) has included the whole Visayas areas on the list of regions affected by the gale warning since 5 p.m. on Wednesday.

According to the weather bureau, the public can expect rough to very rough seas over the areas included in the gale warning.

The southwest monsoon or habagat was enhanced by Super Typhoon “Hanna” and the expected wave height over the Visayas seaboards ranged from 3.4 meters to 4.5 meters, it added.

“Strong to gale force winds are expected to affect the northern and eastern seaboards of Luzon, the seaboard of Palawan, and the seaboards of Visayas and Mindanao,” Pagasa said in its latest advisory on Thursday morning.

Because of this, Cebu Coast Guard station commander Weniel Azcuna suspended the trips for small vessels (below 250 gross tonnage), affecting over 1,000 passengers for Bohol (Tagbilaran, Tubigon, Getafe), and different parts of Leyte.

“All trips of vessels 250GT below particularly fastcrafts and small motorbancas are temporarily suspended until Pagasa lifts the gale warning,” Azcuna told dyLA.

As of 9 a.m. on Monday, Cebu Coast Guard recorded 1,069 affected passengers, mostly for Bohol and Leyte areas. At least 16 small vessels were suspended.

The routes affected include Cebu-Tubigon; Cebu-Tagbilaran; Hagnaya, San Remegio to Sta. Fe Bantayan; Toledo City-San Carlos Negros Occidental; Cebu-Bato, Leyte; Cebu-Baybay Leyte; Cebu-Talibon; San Francisco, Camotes- Danao City; Pilar-Ormoc City; Tangil port in Dumanjug to Escalante-Negros Occidental.